Code Name: Julie, Oscar, Alpha, November
by Enid Black
Summary: Please note that, incidentally, this is a genderswap story: John becomes Joan... it's not my fault, it's that my dreams are weird! Joan Watson, 25, is head nurse in one of the continental camp hospitals during WWII. One day an annoying patient appears in the officers' ward and she will resort to dirty tactics to have him cooperate.
1. Chapter 1: How they first met

NOTE: this is a WWII/'50s AU inspired by one of my dreams. In the dream, John had become Joan and I kept it.

This part is made of three chapters, already written. And I'm a 4 chapter along with the second part (but I prefer waiting for them to be complete before publishing ^^)...

Ok, have a good time with this!

* * *

Joan Watson had got used to the noise of aeroplanes, to the alarms. Working in the Continental bases during WWII meant that, and more. After three years on the field, a shoulder wounded in action (luckily it was just something more than a graze) and uncountable nights and days spent next to wounded and dying soldiers, the role of Head Nurse had been given to her for her level-head-ness and her solid decisional abilities that endured even in the worst scenarios (and she had seen quite a few of them), when even some soldiers fell into a panic.

So, when from the officers' wing of the camp hospital she heard Doctor Anderson shout and yell (he wasn't the brightest apple in the bunch, if you asked her), and a second baritonal voice answering but laced with pain, she didn't hesitate to go and see what was happening.  
And what was happening was that a 6 feet long man was arguing with the doctor for something (impossible to discern about what through the shouting). The man wasn't very mobile, having both legs plastered into casts until mid-thigh, the right arm was plastered as well, with the elbow bent at 90 degrees, and he had a dressing that run all around his head. A mop of curly dark brown hair escaped from the top of the dressing itself. The man seemed quite young, mid-twenties, more or less her age, and didn't really seem a soldier or, God forbid, an officer. She approached the bed.

"Sorry sirs… "

"YOU HAVE TO ABIDE THE DOCTOR'S ORDERS, YOU WERE ORDERED TO…"

"I'LL NEVER ABIDE TO STUPID ORDERS, I WASN'T DOING…"

Joan counted until ten, straightened her back, put the hands on her hips, took a deep breath and then,

"SHUT UP!" her contralto voice carried and covered those of the men, who turned to look at her flabbergasted, "Thank you, sirs." She said, with her normal, gentle tone. She approached the bed, took the syringe out of the doctor's hands and looked at both of them, "Doctor Anderson, may you please explain me what's going on? I could hear shouting from the central ward, and you were disturbing the rest of my patients." She smiled but it was a dangerous smile. The curly haired man looked at her with interested eyes.

"The patient here is Mr Sherlock Holmes and has been assigned to our care even if he is not military. Orders from above. He has two broken legs, one broken elbow and he is severely concussed. He is in a rage status and needs to be put under sedatives." He said, in his petulant voice.  
Joan looked at him completely unimpressed

"Doctor Anderson, what is inside the syringe?"

"Just some morphine, to help with the pain and make him rest." Joan looked at the doctor and then at the patient. Then she took the folder with the patient's information and read through.

"I can't be under morphine, I have a case to solve and I need to be vigil." Holmes said, at a meeker tone. Joan made a shushing gesture, keeping on reading. Another nurse, Molly, peeked in the room.

"Doctor Anderson?" she asked, "We have an emergency and we need a doctor, can you please come?" Joan took the chance,

"Doctor, you can go as you please, I can take care of the patient here." She said. Anderson huffed, but his duties were clear.

"Don't come crying to me when this idiot makes you go mad."

"I can assure you I can handle my share of idiocy, I do that every day." She answered, looking pointedly at him. "Now go, Molly is waiting for you."

Anderson got away from the room. Joan put the capped syringe in her white coat and proceeded to check the patient.

"You just called him an idiot and he didn't even notice." He said, almost trying to make small talk while the nurse checked his pupillary response covering and uncovering his eyes (light green, blue? What was the name of that colour, anyway? She wondered) and then prodding his head and the bruise on his cheekbone.

"He's the worst we've got in here, but he can be quick with amputations and he is a good orthopaedist. Besides, we need to make do with what they give us. You're surely still a bit concussed and I don't know how giving you morphine would ever seem a good idea to him: you have to be awake, not to drug-sleeping. For the rest, you need to eat more regularly, and you have a long way to go to heal properly. Your bones had to be settled again." She explained him.  
The man, Sherlock, looked at her interested. She didn't complain at being scrutinized by him, and settled to scribble some instructions on the chart.

"Does your left shoulder hurt a lot?" he asked her. She shrugged.

"Only when I strain it too much… wait a second, how do you know about that?" Sherlock smiled.

"The way you hold the chart. You are left handed but were corrected to write with the right and you try to do so when working, but you hold the chart more against the hip than with the left arm and your posture is a bit rigid on that side, like you are afraid of feeling pain." Sherlock then shut up and waited.

"Oh… wow, well, amazing. And you got that just from how I hold the chart?"

"And from the fact that you took the syringe with the left: a right handed person would never have."

"Really fantastic." She said. Sherlock looked at her surprised. "What's up?"

"This is not the usual reaction I get to my deductions." Was Sherlock's response.

"And what is it, usually?"

"Piss off."

Joan let out a huff of laughter, and Sherlock too took out a smile.

"Well, Mr Holmes, I think you'll have the time to deduce pretty much the entire staff here, because it looks like you'll be here at least for six weeks." Sherlock groaned again.

"I'll be dying of boredom… Mycroft will pay this dearly." Joan patted his good shoulder.

"We'll try to avoid your death, just work with me, uh? I have to go now, but I'll be back."

And indeed she would be back, because no other nurse could stand that annoying git that a bored Sherlock Holmes was. He made a couple of younger nurses cry in shame after revealing some personal secrets, and the more experienced ones were wary of him. It had to be added that he was a nightmare to be fed, because he almost always disregarded food. After the third day in a row (more or less after two weeks of his stay) in which his only meals had been the teas she had taken the habit to take with him at the end of the day (he would deduce all her patients of the day, she would coax some calories in him and have him doing his exercises not to lose movement in the legs and the shoulders), Joan decided to take the job, literally, in her hands.  
At the following meal time, she asked Molly to substitute her in the main ward and went to Sherlock's room.

"Ah, Joan. Please, tell your colleague that I have already eaten." Sherlock said upon seeing her.

"Sarah, you can go, I will deal with this git." The other nurse didn't hesitate in going away leaving the task to Joan.

"Sherlock, you can't make my nurses crazy, otherwise the other patients will be in trouble."

"Boring. And I'm dying of boredom, just like I told you!" Joan rolled her eyes

"You're just being overly dramatic. Come on, start eating, at least you will be less bored."

"Eating is boring and it slows my mental process." Joan's eyebrows rose and she looked at him, totally unimpressed.

"Sherlock, you are healing, your body needs nutrition, if you won't eat by yourself, I'm not beyond feeding you." Sherlock looked at her raising one eyebrow, that disappeared under the gauze  
on his head. "Your expression would maybe be more effective if you hadn't a whole roll of gauze on your head." Joan smiled at him. "Ok, listen to me: if you don't eat by yourself, I'll be feeding you myself all your meals." Just to carry her threat across, Joan took a spoonful of pudding from the dish and started making aeroplane noises. "Vrooom, Julie Oscar Alpha November to Sierra Hotel Echo Romeo Lima Yankee, we request confirmation for the landing…" Sherlock's eyes widened comically (SHERLY? REALLY?) and he took the spoon from Joan's hands, putting it in his mouth and starting eating on his own.

"Devious woman." He muttered between a mouthful and the other. Joan smirked and patted his good shoulder. He glared at her, she didn't take him seriously.

"I have good news for you, anyway. I should be able to take off the bandage from your head and replace with a smaller one. If you'd like, it could be a good occasion to wash your hair." Sherlock almost moaned at the thought.

"Yes, please, I can't stand them anymore." Joan smiled.

"You eat all your meals and I'll try to make the best to relieve your boredom. But only if you eat regularly."  
Sherlock begrudgingly accepted and this unusual woman was the first able to coax something out of Sherlock without restraining him.

The following four weeks passed with this strange routine, with Joan making sure to be the one attending Sherlock in the most annoying phases, and Sherlock going a bit out of his usual behaviour trying to impress the blonde.  
After other two weeks the bandages on his head were removed and he was allowed to shave, to his delight. At the end of the fifth week, the plasters on the legs were removed and Sherlock underwent a week of physiotherapy in order to regain a bit of strength. Joan was assigned to this duty too, because otherwise making Sherlock cooperate would have been impossible. She didn't mind. She had definitely become rather fond of that impossible lanky man.  
At the end of the sixth week, the last plaster was removed and Sherlock was deemed good to go back to England. Joan checked him over one last time, deeming him ok to travel.

"You'll be happy, free at last. Keep on the exercises for your legs and arm so they regain their strength and you'll be fine." She told him, smiling, if a bit sadly. Sherlock looked at her, then a quick glance to the door. Closed.

"So, I am not one of your patients anymore…" he said, his voice low. Joan looked at him and tilted her head.

"Exactly, I am a free woman now, no more begged by all the staff to take care of the git."

"You know they don't call me git…"

"Oh, but I do." She said, a small smile.

"Anyway, I was saying, I am no more one of your patients, therefore it is no more required for you to be professional towards me, am I right?" Joan furrowed a bit her eyebrows. Sherlock got on his feet, trying his legs, and closed the, admittedly small, space that lingered between them. He didn't exactly crowd her, but was close to.

"I'd say no…" she answered, wanting to know where he would go. Her stance opened a bit, her arms resting lightly on her hips as she was used to keeping them. "I have to admit I'm not used to looking at you from down below, you're quite tall." She said. Sherlock observed her stance opening, the way she touched her hair and her slightly dilated pupils.

"Well, and you're a tiny strong woman, if you could boss me around for all this time." He smiled her, looking rapidly at her lips. A bit of colour got to Joan's cheeks as they tended to gravitate towards each other.

"Someone's got to. You're insufferable." She answered.

"You'll miss me." He said, a small smile.

"I'll miss you." She confirmed.

"Miss Watson, I can be pretty sure you are as unattached as me, and have neither a fiancé nor a husband waiting for you in England, do you?" he murmured at a couple of inches from her lips.

"Just a sister waiting for me, no one else." She confirmed, her breath slightly shallow.

"Then, I hope I'm not being too forward in daring this." He closed the distance between them with a chaste, if firm, kiss. She whimpered and clutched his forearms, still minding his bad arm. They parted with a small sound. "If you are amenable to the idea, I'd like to be waiting for you to come back to England. You know where I live and a part of what I do. I enjoyed our time together and I really enjoy your company. Women are usually boring and predictable and you are neither. Please, tell me…"

"Yes," she answered, "Yes, I'd like for you to wait for me. I'd like to come back to you.". Sherlock hugged her tight.

"I didn't want you to back off on me on some duty honour you would surely pull out, so I'm sorry I had to tell you this at the last second. I'll make it up to you. Your duty period will be up in three months, won't it?" Joan looked at him and nodded, smiling. "Then I'll be waiting for you. In the meanwhile, thanks for taking care not only of my injuries but of my mind as well."

"It'll be better for you to be keeping this promise, Sherlock, I wouldn't make me cross."

"It's far from my desires," He answered, kissing her forehead. A knock sounded at the door. "I have to go now." He pickpocketed one of her embroidered tissues from her pocket. "See you soon, my dear."

"See you soon, Sherlock." She said, leaving a small kiss on the corner of his mouth.  
Sherlock exited the door, following a man in a sharp suit, and Joan hoped that it wasn't the last time she'd seen that amazing man.  
She took a few minutes to calm down, restore her breathing and try, failing, to keep a stupid grin from appearing on her face. When she felt she was composed enough, she exited from the door that brought to the main ward. Outside of it, a few feet from there, a tall man in a suit with a black umbrella at his side seemed to be waiting for her.

"Joan Watson?" his public school accent evident in the three syllables, the blue eyes darting over her in a familiar if not unsettling way.

"Yes, how may I help you?" she answered, promptly falling into her Head-nurse persona. The man smiled at her.

"Please, come with me, we need to have a chat." he said, making her way into an empty office. She looked at him warily "I swear, I just want to speak with you. About your last patient, Sherlock Holmes."

"I'm sorry, sir, I will not discuss Mr Holmes' health status with others than him." She answered.

"Do not worry, I shall not ask you about his health. I have a proposal for you, Miss, and I'd like to be heard out." Joan looked at him suspiciously but followed the man inside the room. The door was just closing and, "My name is Mycroft Holmes and…"


	2. Ch2 – How they ended up working together

Sherlock was beyond pissed off with Mycroft. Not only he had to leave for another mission, but the day of departure preceded by few days the date in which Joan would be back and he was, thus, _beyond pissed_. But the job had to be done and may he be damned if he wouldn't require a triple pay from MI6 for this.

"At least avoid sending that nuisance of Sally Donovan this time, Mycroft. Ask Lestrade to send someone suitable to the job, for once! Since he was upgraded, I haven't had a decent liaison officer." He told his brother (and employer), before going home to leave a message to be given to Joan in the following days. Mrs Hudson would see to it, but it didn't change his foul mood. He left the 221b in Baker Street hoping that this would not count as breaking his promise to Joan.

At the MI6 HQ in London, Joan arrived after completing her three months training with MI6. Some things she already knew (basics of self-defence had been taught to her by soldiers whose lives she had saved), some things she was particularly and naturally skilled at (shooting, for example, and her instructors were very pleased with that), the rest she faced with the same determination with which she had faced the war. As she was out of service she wasn't required a dress code: her Aran-wool cardigan with a black blouse underneath and knee-length skirt with a pair of comfortable shoes would do for today. She had been picked up at the bedsit she resided in at the moment by a black car, Mycroft's signature, and thus she knew she would leave for her first real mission soon. She entered the unassuming building near the St Paul Cathedral and directed herself to the door with the brass incision "Lestrade, G. Head of Liaison Office".

Gregory Lestrade, or Greg as he preferred to be referred to, was a man in his 40s, with early greying hair and a warm smile that hid his abilities well. He had been Joan's main instructor and he had been the official Liaison between Sherlock and the MI6 for three years before being promoted. Since then, several liaison officers had been assigned to the man but no one had lasted. He couldn't help feeling a bit guilty about Sally Donovan's fate.

Joan knocked at the door and, at the positive reaction from the inside, opened it and went in front of her principal.

"Agent Watson, sit down..." he started, looking at her. Why had Mycroft decided to assign the newbie to Sherlock? Sometimes that man confused him utterly.

"It's Joan, Greg. You know that, and as you know that and apparently forgot about it... tell me the bad news." She answered, sitting down and smiling at him. Lestrade sighed

"You've always been too smart for your own good, but it's not really bad news, it's just… never mind. I have your next assignment, your first real assignment on the field. You will be paired with Special Agent Holmes"

"Special Agent?" she asked. She knew that Sherlock worked for the government, but she had learned that Special Agents were used by more than one agency.

"Well, he's not only an MI6 agent, he's just... I can't really explain it. And... you've been assigned as his Liaison Agent. If I have to be sincere I found it a bit premature, with you being just outside of training and him being…_him._" Joan smiled internally. She would see him after all. She decided to have a bit of fun with Lestrade, first.

"And that's bad because? From what I heard, he must got pretty high-end missions, it doesn't seem that bad. Maybe you think I'm not ready?" she asked.

"It is pretty high end and I sincerely think that, even if you're just out of training, you can do well…it's just… That he is a bit difficult to work with. But it's an order from high above... and you know, I want to warn you: he gave his last Liaison Agent a nervous breakdown." Joan looked at him, pained.

"Oh, poor thing. But don't worry about me, Greg, I can handle him."

"I was serious about the nervous breakdown, Joan. Agent Donovan had to be hospitalized."

"I didn't doubt that. Thanks for the heads-up, Greg, but if you read my file, you'll see that I handled him as a nurse three months ago when he had two broken legs and one broken arm. He was terrifying my staff. But behaved pretty decently to me." _Understatement of the century, Joan. _"So don't worry."

"Wait, wait… you were _the nurse_? The one able to make him _eat the whole time?_ How did…" Lestrade was absolutely surprised and even a bit curious.

"How did I convince him to eat regularly? I can be pretty convincing… But I can't go around and tell all my tricks, can I? Anyway, are you more at ease, now?" Lestrade still looked at her warily but nodded.

"Yes, I am. At least I won't have another nervous breakdown on my conscience." He pushed forward a folder. "Here it is the file you have to work with. You'll meet Holmes in Dublin tomorrow. Be ready to leave at 6:00 pm tonight." Joan nodded and took the file.

"Roger. I'll go get ready then. Have a nice day, I'll see you upon returning."

"Ok, Joan. Take care." Joan smiled and exited the room, putting the file in her handbag and going back to her room in order to prepare.

Sherlock was pacing the room in the hotel in Dublin where he was supposed to meet his Liaison officer with MI6. He was irritated and more than a bit angry at Mycroft for setting this mission in the days when Joan was supposed to come back to London. For once that he desired to behave almost like a normal human being, he was impeded by his useless brother. But the information they had to gather in Dublin could change the course of the war and the thought of making it stop and never having Joan leave again was too appealing.

In the end he settled on the small couch, reading the newspapers that he had been given in the morning. Finally, just few minutes before the arranged hour, someone knocked at the door. _At least they can be punctual. _

"Come in," he said, not even glancing the door. The agent went towards him and he saw her shoes in his visual field. _Another woman, then. _"I hope you've been adequately prepared for working with me. I don't do niceties or platitudes, so don't expect them from me. I want efficiency and I'll have it." A chuckle took him by surprise, freezing him mid movement while turning the page.

"I see you've not changed. How are your arm and legs? You seem to be in a pretty good shape now, even if you're still on this side of too thin."

Sherlock slowly closed the newspaper, brushed his trousers and waistcoat from invisible lint and rose to his feet. Then, he turned at his right and made his eyes travel from bottom to top. Joan's shoes were sensible and her skirt was long enough to be decent but allowed her sufficient movement. There was probably a gun holster on her thigh. She had a sharp jacket and a nice white blouse. Her hair was still put in the bun she used as a nurse: practicality at her best. She seemed to be a bit more fit, her body carrying a confidence she didn't have three months earlier. When their eyes met, Joan smiled sincerely and broadly. Sherlock's demeanour suddenly changed and he felt elated. He wouldn't miss her, Joan was with him.

"So, are you my new Liaison officer? Were you a MI6 nurse?" he asked. He didn't think so, but one can never be too sure.

"Nope," she said, grinning, "I was hired by your brother after having demonstrated to be able to handle you for six whole weeks. If I'm not wrong, he called that 'a remarkable accomplishment'." Sherlock may have, for once, to thank Mycroft.

"And who trained you?"

"My main instructor was Head Officer Gregory Lestrade. I trained with others the first month, but then he took over."

"At least, you've been taught by someone who is not completely clueless. I suppose you have the final arrangements for our mission?" he asked.

"Sure. We have to be in the hall of this same hotel at 1:00 pm, more or less in three hours, ready to meet with the Target."

"In three hours, uh?" he asked. She confirmed with a nod. Sherlock smiled at her, an open smile, his true smile. "I can't begin to describe how happy I am to work with you." He told her.

"I hope I'll be par with the expectations. But I am happy to be here too. Greg seemed a bit worried at the beginning, really, but I explained that I had already handled you." She smiled.

"He asked how you got me to eat?" Sherlock shivered at the thought of that scene being known.

"Oh yes, he did. It doesn't mean I told him. It's for us to know and for the others to wonder." Joan took a step towards him. "May I ask if your intentions towards me have changed?" she said, her voice level but uncertainty in her eyes. Sherlock regarded her again.

"Yes, you may. And they haven't changed a bit, my dear." He answered, closing the distance and embracing her for few moments. They haven't seen each other since their first kiss, but, hug apart, they tried to be professional. After the reassurance, Joan sat down and took the file from her bag, debriefing Sherlock on the last details she had been given prior her departure. Sherlock asked her some questions and kept on smiling while she answered with competence. His luck in finding this woman had been incomparable.


	3. How S courted, proposed and married Joan

Maybe asking her if he could wait for her was the nearest he had come to actual society-accepted courting. From the day Joan had been assigned as his Liaison Officer with the MI6 and MI5, they kept on working together, so his courting had been unusual to say the least. In a mission in Milan, two months after the first mission, he had brought her to a ball, all formal dresses and so on, just to be forced to chase the suspect throughout the city, ending in a sewer and having thus Joan swearing all the time for "impractical dresses, hazardous shoes and bloody awfully timed enemies". During a seemingly nice evening in London, on the New Year's Eve between 1944 and 1945, the sirens forced them to cover in the refuge with Mrs Hudson, who at least had brought the food with her (but they had planned for a night together and now had an uncomfortable chaperone). Sherlock even tried to bring Joan out for St Valentine's day, but Mycroft summoned both of them for a sudden meeting for a mission. They spent an awful quantity of time together, faking being husband and wife, or sister and brother, or just friends or colleagues. They laughed a lot together, but they never had time to spend in peace. At the end of the day, Joan would insist to go back to her rooms, because it was not proper for a single woman to spend the night with the man courting her. Sherlock would argue that they spent plenty of nights together (never in the same bed, although, Joan would not allow that), but she would retort "Work is work, Sherlock, this is our life and I don't want to hear gossip about me."

In the end, all this grated on Sherlock and around May of the 1945, with the war finally at its final stages and the German forces surrendering in Europe, Sherlock decided that they could not wait for the next mission to spend time together or for their next date to be ruined. That was what brought him at the Diogenes Club on an early Wednesday morning mid-May. He waited in the visitor's room for his brother, who showed within minutes with one eyebrow raised at his presence.

"Brother dear, what do I owe the pleasure of your visit to?" he asked, making a gesture to the butler to bring tea. He could see that his younger brother was fidgeting and nervous and this made him even more curious. He knew it wasn't a matter of working nature, but more personal, but even he could not imagine what was going to be asked in the next few minutes.

"Mycroft, I won't beat it around the bush. As head of our family, I should need your approval, but I am here to inform you that I will carry on with my projects regardless of your opinion. I am here just to be able to say that I informed you previously of my intentions."

"Sherlock, may you at least tell me this _thing_ before going all over the place with my hypothetical reaction?" he asked, as the butler served them tea. Sherlock refused the liquid, standing again and trying to compose himself. "You are not under the influence of some drug, are you?" he asked.

"No! God, Mycroft, I stopped ages ago and besides Joan would kill me if…"

"Ah, now I got it… Joan… you've come to talk me about Miss Watson?"

"No… yes… No, in a sense, yes but…" Mycroft drank his tea looking amusedly at Sherlock, who kept rambling, "I'm here to ask you your permission as head of the family to ask her in marriage." Mycroft finished his tea with utmost care and calm, and then stapled his fingers under his chin – a common gesture in the Holmes family – and looked his brother straight in the eyes.

"Let me get this right… You, Sherlock Sigerson Holmes, who usually disregard every social rule in your path, are asking me, as head of _our family_ the permission to marry Joan Helsin Watson?" Sherlock gritted his teeth.

"I would go on and ask her but I know that she would appreciate the effort I'm making now and that you are making fun of. If you want to refuse, do that as soon as possible and let me deal with this in my own terms. If you want to agree, I'm amenable to have your help, as long as you _stop making fun of me_." Mycroft looked very surprised but also more than a little pleased.

"Brother dear, never in my life I would have imagined you willing to marry and believe me when I say that I'd never imagine you wanting to share your life with another person and especially a woman like Agent Watson." He held his hand out, interrupting Sherlock's rant. "Therefore, I shall promptly give my permission, as head of the family, to this proposal." Sherlock looked at him with both eyebrows raised.

"Really? Isn't she too low on the social scale for your little brother?"

"Sherlock, do you really believe me to be that vain? I value intelligence over birth rights, exactly like you. She is a remarkable woman, she has demonstrated to be able to take a very good care of you and I know how much you care about her."

"I love her." Sherlock said.

"You lov… and how could you think I would refuse you this? The only thing that I will ask of you is that you use our mother's engagement ring to ask her hand." Sherlock looked at him even more surprised. Then really observed his brother. This was not Mycroft Henry Holmes, the English Government. This was Mycroft, his big brother who helped him finding new experiments to do and who would disinfect his knees when he fell. This was the man who loved a person he knew he should not love and that he could not marry. "You know my situation, I'll never use that ring. I wish for you to give it to Joan. Mummy would be very pleased." Sherlock's gaze softened.

"Thank you, Mycroft," he said, "and you know my position regarding your personal life and I am pretty sure that Joan would share it if you desired for her to know." Mycroft stood up, cutting the meeting short on that personal remark, even if the look he gave at his brother was of gratitude.

"I have to go now. Go and fetch the ring, I think it's in the safe in the house. And I am happy for you. Give my best to Joan. I'll grant you some free time in order to organize everything."

"She still has to say yes."

"Oh, Sherlock. That is one of the few things I'd never have a doubt about." And then exited the room.

Sherlock stood for a few seconds stunned by his brother's reaction. Not that he expected him to refuse, but a bit more teasing… he had been wistful instead. He smiled a bit bitterly. Social norms were insufferable for him who could follow them, he could not imagine how bad it could be for those who were not inclined that way.

This journey into sentimentalism, alas, didn't help him planning his proposal. He retrieved the ring and, putting it into a small box, he started to carry it around everywhere, but every time he thought it could be a good moment, something happened to ruin it. A nice walk in Regent's park was interrupted by a sudden summer storm that forced Joan to go back to her bedsit in order to dry and change. A tentative evening out at Angelo's, the Italian restaurant they used to go to, was what as far from romantic as you can imagine when Joan decided to invite her sister Harriet (or Harry as she wanted to be called) and they spent the evening in three, with his deductions about Harry's drinking habits threatening to be spilt but that had to be clamped down because he didn't want to make Joan uncomfortable. A trip in the country had him totally distracted by a beehive that he spent most time observing, with Joan that watched him with an expression that was amused, fond and relaxed at the same time.

In the end, uncommon was the kindest adjective that Sherlock could think of to describe his proposal. They were walking along the City, strolling in the still damaged Chinatown, when Joan saw a nice tea set inside one of the few open shops and decided to enter. As soon as they were inside, the shop-owner started offering him things and knickknacks whilst Joan looked at the china.

"Do you want a Lucky Cat? It will bring luck to your wife and you! It is a nice gift for her, so that you can be lucky and happy!" Joan was starting the same litany of "I am not his wife" when Sherlock snapped, went to her, dropped on one knee and busted, looking at her hopeful and a little bit frightened,

"Joan, would you marry me?"

Joan was stunned into silence for a moment.

"Are you asking me to marry you… in a Chinese shop while the owner mistakes me for your wife and tries to sell you a ceramic cat?" she asked, just to understand if she had got it right.

"I tried composing a more romantic evening, but the rain first, your sister then and other unforeseeable situations prevented me from doing it. At least, now I've asked you." Joan was still looking at him, not having even given a glance to the ring that rested inside the box. The impatience started to appear on Sherlock's hopeful face "I even asked permission to Mycroft and he gave me our mother's engagement ring…" he added, trying to convey how it was exceptional for him. Joan looked at the ring then and then looked Sherlock in the eyes, still silent. "Joan… You are the most interesting person I have ever met and I felt drawn to you since the beginning. You are never boring, always smart and have an infinite patience with me. But, more than all this, I am utterly and hopelessly in love with you. Would you make me a honest man and marry me?" he asked again. Joan's eyes were shining. She stepped forward, cupping Sherlock's cheek with her left hand and smiled.

"Yes, Sherlock. I want to marry you." She said, happiness in her voice.

Sherlock's grin was huge while he rose up from the floor. He kissed delicately the hand on his face and then took it between his, sliding the gold band with the mounted ruby on her left ring finger. The owner of the Chinese shop started congratulating and trying to sell them even more things. They ended up with the china set Joan had noticed and with one of those gaudy cats, because Joan said that they needed something to remind them of the absurdity of the situation.

The wedding was simple. Neither wanted to draw unrequired attention to it, as with their jobs, and both desired a simple union. They decided not to have a religious wedding, so Mycroft was appointed to officiate the small ceremony. Joan chose her sister Harry as witness and Sherlock asked to a flabbergasted Lestrade to be his and on December 8th, 1945 the five of them simply dined at 221b Baker Street, the newlyweds residence, with a feast made by Mrs Hudson who was just too happy about it.

Harry left pretty early (and pretty drunk, Sherlock made sure that she took a cab to her house, much to Joan's relief) and Mrs Hudson excused herself to her flat (just downstairs). Thus, Sherlock and Joan found themselves in the loveseat, whilst their guests sat on the couch, drinking their scotch (a blend Mycroft had brought for the occasion).

Joan eyed them, standing one foot from each other and fidgeting. Joan's eyes met Lestrade's and she nodded, smiling kindly. Thus Greg moved to get near Mycroft and took his hand. The elder Holmes brother stiffened, looking utterly surprised while Sherlock smiled at his wife and kissed her hair (only partially gathered and with a nice perfume).

"You will never have to be afraid here." she said to them, simply stating a fact. Mycroft met her eyes and she smiled again, making him relax enough to entwine his hand with his lover's and press a bit more against him. They were not big with their displays as a rule, but the elation in being able to hold hands in another place but the home they secretly shared was marvellous.

Life seemed as nice as it could be.


	4. NOTE OF AUTHOR

Author's note!

The first chapter of the sequel is up!

s/9759436/1/


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